Ducks Fail to Sell-out Playoff Game

Despite the incredible first round upset the Anaheim Ducks pulled off beating the NHL's top seeded San Jose Sharks, the Ducks' fans have failed to show up to the games.

According to a blog posting on the OC Register: "Only 16,277 tickets were sold for Game 3, well short of the 17,174-plus mark the club normally achieves at Honda Center. It was the first time the Ducks failed to sell out a playoff game since Game 6 of the 2006 Western Conference quarterfinals against Calgary and therefore the first playoff non-sellout since the Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007."

It was the Ducks 5th worst selling game of the entire season.

NBC: The Network That Cuts Away To Heidi and Horses

Despite having Malkin, Ovechkin and Crosby, the three biggest names in hockey matching up in a scintillating 2nd round matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals, NBC will cut away from Saturday's game to show horse racing if the game carries on too long.

NBC infamously did this two years ago when the Ottawa Senators-Buffalo Sabres locked up in the Eastern Conference Finals.

What ever happened to the rule in television of staying with the programming you started until it concludes?

Klitschko-Haye Fight draws huge interest

Apparently all that's wrong with boxing's heavyweight picture can be fixed with geography. While the heavyweight division has drawn little to no interest in North America since Lennox Lewis retired, ticket sales for Wladimir Klitschko's fight versus David Haye on June 20th in Germany indicate another thing overseas.

The fight will take place in Schalke stadium, normally used for football/soccer and ticket sales have been huge thus far.

Bernd Boente, managing director of Klitschko's management group, said there was huge interest in the fight as soon as the tickets went on sale last week.

"We started ticket sales on Friday of last week and on the first day we sold 30,000," Boente said. "Today we have 47,000 tickets sold. We are very sure that the fight will be sold out. I think we will have something between 60-70,000 on fight night."

New Detroit Lions Logo

So what's the best way to make people forget about the worst season perhaps in North American professional sports history? Tweak the logo, font and branding of the team.

That should do it

Sports and Twitter

CNN had a good piece earlier this week on the prevalence of sport stars and announcers using Twitter to connect with and update fans with news (if you want to call it that).

Shaquille O'Neal has emerged early as the sports world most prominent Twitterer? Tweeter? he has a following of 700,000 people on his account.

Charlie Villanueva from the Milwaukee Bucks even took the time to update his Twitter account during half-time of a game early this year to inform his followers: "In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."

I personally could see Twitter evolve as a great self-promotion marketing tool for individual athletes; particularly amateur Olympic athletes. The Vancouver 2010 Olympics could be a breeding ground for Twitter's success with sports.

The Toronto Bills Slash Ticket Prices

No word yet if the acquisition of T.O. by the Bills is a reason for the devalued product.

Last year was the first year of a 5-year 8-game agreement between the Buffalo Bills to play a mix of their pre-season and regular season games in Toronto's Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome). The Bills' Canadian excursion was hardly a glowing success, ticket sales were lower than expected chiefly because of the fattened ticket prices Toronto organizers were charging. The negative voices have been heard and as a result Toronto organizer are now lowering ticket prices for year 2.

According to reports, the average costs of tickets will decrease by 17%.

"Of the approximately 54,000 seats that the Rogers Centre has for football, about 36,000 will be cheaper than they were last year, when the Bills broke down the border for a regular-season game in Toronto against the Miami Dolphins after playing the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Rogers Centre in a pre-season game.

Ticket prices will range from $99-$275, but VIP seats will be $495. Last year, there were 4,700 tickets that were less than $100. For the game this season, more than 11,000 tickets will be available for under $100. "

Detroit Red Wings on Layaway

In an obvious effort to entice or stimulate continued season ticket sales in the recession-riddled city of Detroit, the Red Wings are introducing a layaway program.

According to the team's press release, the Wings are the first NHL club to offer the layaway service through eLayawaySPORTS and the third pro sports franchise alongside the NFL's Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints.

Users of the service are charged a one-time 1.9% flat rate and then have the benefit of zero interest.

ESPN Goes Local

ESPN has introduced some local website flavour to their online offering; ESPNChicago.com was launched on Monday. The website replaces the radio website that ESPN's Chicago affiliate was running. The design of the site is consistent with the look-n-feel of the national site ESPN.com and the content, made up of articles and videos, is Chicago sports specific.

To write the Chicago targeted material ESPN will use their staffers as well as former sports writers from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

You can bet that if ESPNChicago goes well that ESPN will replicate this model for other ESPN radio affiliate websites.

This ESPN local model could pose a real threat to the already declining reading audience that newspapers are battling. Newspapers were already late to the party when it came to incorporating online features with conventional print and now you have to think that with ESPN's brand muscle, online prowess and resources (including potentially disgruntled old newspaper employees) they could blow the newspapers' online coverage right out of the water.

This is will be an interesting case study to watch.

Boston Bruin Up Some Good Commercials

I gave some love to the Chicago Blackhawks a few days ago for their creative anti-Red Wings ad, now it's some to dole out some daps and head taps to the Boston Bruins and they're hilarious new ad campaign.

The ads with the tagline 'Bruins Hockey Rules" were prepared in time for the Bruins playoff run by Mullen, a Massachusetts-based advertising agency.

Enjoy!

Atlanta Thrashers PSA

Despite their poor record on the ice the Thrashers delivered a true highlight through their brilliant marketing during a recent appearance by Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

During one of the stoppages the Thrashers ran a hilarious Public Service Announcement (PSA) about the dangers of hockey players doing bad commercials. Of course with Ovie in the building it was a wink in his direction about his atrocious local car commercial that has been making the rounds. You have to hand it to the Thrashers marketing group, this is brilliant.

Although I do have issue with the Thrashers not purchasing the actual website that they point people to in the PSA http://www.youcantact.com/; looks like they didn't think through the idea to it's end and as a result it was purchased by an individual who has it pointing to his own branding/marketing site.

Here's the PSA:



Here's some outtakes from Ovechkin's bad commercial:

Adidas House Party

Adidas launched a big new ad campaign to celebrate 60 years of the Adidas brand in January of this year entitled the "Adidas Originals". The Adidas Originals campaign is centered around a House Party that rivals all house parties with guests that include David Beckham, Kevin Garnett, Katy Perry, Estelle, Missy Elliott and a slew of others. It's a pretty cool themed ad campaign.



Here's another commercial from the same campaign with KG and Becks going head-to-head in some soccer-basketball hybrid type game.




BTW, if you're interested in the details of the history of Adidas and the feuds that Adi Dassler had with his brother at Puma, check out the book "Sneaker Wars" by Barbara Smit - it's an incredible read.

Blackhawks Anti-Calamari Message

The Chicago Blackhawks are having a little fun with their first post-season marketing opportunity in 7 years. They posted a bunch of videos on their website, this was one:



What a fun series that could be with the Red Wings, which could happen as early as Round 2.

Chi-Town Represents

The resurgence of the Chicago Blackhawks has been one of the NHL's best feel good stories of the season. The story lines were numerous this year for the Blackhawks: They've made it back to the playoffs for the first time in 7 years with a 100+ point campaign, they hosted another terrific outdoor game for the NHL at Wrigley Field, they've got a young nucleus of Toews, Kane and Keith that they can build around for years and now you can add an attendance record to the list.

With Wednesday's game earlier this week the Blackhawks set a new attendance record - the best in the 82 year history of the club.

"Chicago’s current number of 827,425 fans this season is through 38 regular-season contests at the United Center and does not include the 40,818 that attended NHL Winter Classic 2009 at Wrigley Field on Jan. 1. Overall, the Blackhawks, who lead the league with an average of 22,262 fans per home game this season, have drawn 39 capacity crowds in 39 home dates and 42 consecutive dating back to the end of last season." Source - Chicago Blackhawks Press Release

The Fab Five

The New York Times ran an interesting piece a few days about the reunion of the Michigan Wolverines Fab Five at the Final Four tourney in Detroit.

It's been 17 years since the Fab five freshman group of Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson led the Wolverines to the first of two back-to-back championship games. Although Michigan didn't win a national title, which was just compounded by the bad news that was later revealed that boosters were paying some of the players most notably Chris Webber; the two years of the Fab Five are still viewed as a special time in college hoops history.

"The publicity, excitement and student application increases that accompany a phenomenon like the Fab Five prompts universities to spend lavishly on athletics. The Fab Five were so popular that their hallmark droopy shorts and black Nikes became omnipresent. Jerry Wainwright (DePaul coach) said that the Fab Five’s success, especially for Nike, blended the business side of college sports with the athletic side for the first time on a large scale. "

Despite the mixed feelings people have about this group, those Michigan led Fab Five teams were a huge sports business success. They brought in an increase of 61% in athletic royalties in the two years they were together and their two final appearances are the No. 1 and No. 2 most watched NCAA games in history.

Red Wings Unveil Playoff Marketing Campaign

If the Detroit Red Wings new playoff marketing campaign is any indication, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Wings are feeling pretty good about their chances again this year. Too bad the team's marketing group couldn't match the excellence the team displays on the ice.

The Wings are going with "The Beard is Back" as a playoff theme. I'm dead serious, that is their actual campaign. The Wings press release even includes an atrocious quote from Red Wings Senior Vice President of Business Affairs Steve Violetta, who said in response to the campaign, "Here we grow again!"

I know there's a lot of backlash against the Wings already because of their perennial perch as the NHL's top team but if you ever needed a reason to cheer against this team this spring, this facial hair marketing campaign should be the clincher.